


girl in the basement, coming out of her shell

by Anonymous



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2017-11-30
Packaged: 2019-02-07 11:00:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12839775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Because from Vicky's point of view, she joined an exciting new start-up that was supposed to provide a steady paycheck and stable employment for a few centuries at least.  Then, not even a year into it, she got demoted because her boss has no idea what's going on.  Her boss still can't stop things from fucking up and now she has to worry that her workplace will get shut down and she'll have to take some demeaning fast fear job flipping humans on a grill all day long to pay off her student loans.





	girl in the basement, coming out of her shell

**Author's Note:**

> A millennial horror story.

She missed being real Eleanor Shellstrop. Real Eleanor had a personality, and a backstory. She could _relate_ to her. Not the do-gooder stuff, or the tragic backstory stuff, but the clowns, which were one of Vicky's favorite torture instruments and the subject of her undergrad thesis, and being central to the story, which was why she had applied in the first lace. Real Eleanor was a role she could sink her teeth into, all eighty-six of them.

Denise had a pizza shop and a cat. And while White-Pawed Harbinger of Doom was a warm, furry lapful of malevolence at the end of the day, and so adorable when he fetched pieces of ham or pineapple from the kitchen and left them in front of random residents' doors (causing no end of slippings and screechings), there had to be more to Denise than being a cat lady who barely interacted with the humans she was supposed to be torturing.

She kept telling Michael that Denise's motivation didn't click. What sort of person, even a person as strange and limited as a human, opened a shop that sold only one kind of pizza? The frozen yogurt store sold three hundred and sixty-six kinds of frozen yogurt. Surely Denise, as an ostensible human being, understood that other humans would get sick of the same food day in and day out. Even White-Pawed Harbinger of Doom didn't want to eat the same cat food all day. And if she only sold Hawaiian pizza, the humans would, after their first stop, go to any of the other restaurants, but not hers. She was being cut off from a chance to torment them. She wished there was someone she could complain to, but the last demon who tried to unionize was collared by Shawn and given a fate worse than retirement.

Well, there was someone she could complain to. It was just that Michael didn't take her complaints seriously.

She asked for what had to be the tenth time, and he snapped.

"Oh, come on," Michael said, "why do you need to know what Denise's motivation is? Why did the real Eleanor Shellstrop like pictures of clowns? Because humans are absurd, and they are arbitrary. And they accept that about themselves. No one's going to care why you do what you do."

-

"I just," said Chidi, as he toyed with his slice and waited for Pavita to arrive, "I have to wonder why you only serve Hawaiian pizza."

"When I was volunteering at a camp hospital in Nepal," she said, "there was this little girl who was dying of leukemia, who told me she'd always wanted to try Hawaiian pizza. So I set up this shop so that when she gets to the Good Place, she can."

"Objectively speaking," said Chidi, "if entrance to the Good Place is determined by points earned doing good things in one's life, and one's life is very short, it's highly unlikely that any child would qualify for admittance."

Vicky stared at him.

"I'm sorry," he said, and adjusted his glasses. "That was an awful thing to say, wasn't it?"

"Yes," she said, all four of her hearts fluttering as she watched him look horrified and deeply ashamed of himself. "Yes, it was."

Maybe she shouldn't scorch her resignation notice in letters six feet tall all over Michael's office after all.

-

"You always had such a passion for needlework," said Spaw. "You should try making a career out of that."

Vicky loved her spawner, she really did, but she had to roll her eyes as she poured herself another glass of wine (thin and sour with a bouquet that was half fear and half cheap cologne, but it got the job done). Things weren't like they were three thousand years ago, where you could slowly develop a craft and torture humans with leisure and refinement. These days it was all about quantity, not quality, and there was no respect for all the time Vicky had spent at uni, and no one was going to listen to her ideas of how to do things in a more creative, innovative fashion.

"Oh, and I talked to Hrtgtr in Procurement the other day, and she says there's a new metropolis in the works, full of neighborhoods to torture Republicans."

"What have they done this time?" She vaguely remembered a college course on American politics, something about Joe McCarthy, but she hadn't paid that much attention, and she probably wouldn't have cared if she hadn't been so bored at work. White-Pawed Harbinger of Doom was kneading little holes into her khakis and purring like a chainsaw. He was such a good cat. She was going to end Michael if anything actually happened to him.

"I don't know--I heard something about famine, rape, treason, plague, genocide, famine, millions of dead children, and nourishing Ted Cruz."

Vicky shuddered. Sometimes you had to marvel at the depths of human depravity, and sometimes you had to recoil from them. "You said famine twice."

"I guess they really like to starve people to death. Anyway, most of the torture ideas are being sent down from the Good Place, and some of them sound very exciting. I'll put in a good word for you with whoever's doing the staffing at DR."

"Thanks, Spaw," she said, scratching behind her cat's ears. At least Spaw agreed with her, at least she understood that Vicki didn't get three degrees in theater and the dramatic arts to spend eternity serving crappy pizza to stupid people. She was unique and special and important and she had hundreds of thousands of dolors in student loans to pay back. 

Her spawner wasn't done yet. "Only don't forget to call the recruiter to check on the status of your application. You didn't that time you were trying to get that teaching post at the University of Diyu, remember, and then you didn't get it."

"There were five thousand applicants," she said.

"And the successful applicant probably made a point of calling and visiting the office," said Spaw, and Vicky rolled her eyes and took another gulp of the three chunk Chuck, but at least it wasn't the old "why didn't you major in something practical" speech all over again. 

-

"Because," said Vicky, "Hawaii is an island paradise. And this is paradise. So: paradise pizza!"

"Is it?" Chidi asked. "I've never been. And we're not exactly on an island here."

"We are," she said. "Like the pizza, this is an island of deliciousness in a sea of--" She stopped, realizing the metaphor was falling apart, and that the Bad Place was nothing like the human seas she'd heard about. Some of the Bad Place was not like a sea of boiling lead: some of the Bad Place was a literal sea of boiling lead. Hawaii was surrounded by water. And it was multiple islands. Michael's neighborhood was the only one where the torture was subtle and psychological, and while Vicky really appreciated the _concept_ , and its opportunities for creativity and nuance, in practice it was going to have to work a lot better before Shawn committed to more than one.

 _Join an amazing start-up_ , the flyer had screeched. _Opportunities for growth. Are you creative and passionate and an outside-the-spike-lined-crate thinker? Join the Good Place!_

But the interview process had been so short, and so non-exclusive, and the pay hadn't been that great. Vicky should have known this wasn't one of those one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people-eating neighborhoods that existed to rake in investors' money and then get bought out by Facebook.

-

She'd have been glad to know she wasn't the only one with objections, but the pizza was probably going to burn if she had to listen to Dwayne for another half an hour.

"It's like," said Dwayne, "where is my job satisfaction? I heard from Mccthp in DR that they're getting a new batch of humans who refused to vaccinate and perished in the plague, and that's a lot of humans who need torturing. But here it's just the four of them."

"You know what Michael said," said Vicky, stealing his cigar for a minute. "Quality over quantity."

"What quality?"

She sighed. "When I got to be Real Eleanor, I was driving Eleanor and Chidi mad with guilt. Eleanor because she felt bad for taking my place, and Chidi because he liked me better than Eleanor and that raised all sorts of interesting dilemmas. And I got to threaten to abandon him because he wouldn't commit. It was--" She shivered. "It was exquisite. Human agony at its sharpest and its realest because pain is all in those gray lumps they have for brains. I think Michael has a good idea. It's just his execution that's lacking."

"Yeah," said Dwayne. "I miss executions too."

Vicky rolled her eyes. 'He's still the boss. We stick with it for however long it takes for him to work it out."

"Or we ask for a transfer out."

"We can't transfer out. First, DR would just laugh in your face. Second, if anyone says anything, we are all screwed, and that's even _if_ Shawn doesn't retire us all for hiding Michael's fuck-ups. We need this place stable enough that it doesn't completely destroy our resumes. And fix your human suit, you look like Ted Cruz."

"That hurts," he said.

"It was meant to. And I have to get back before the pizza turns into charcoal and it gives them a real excuse not to eat it."

When she got back Chidi was trying to make some sort of philosophical point that involved removing the bacon and pineapple from his pizza and making two unequal stacks of them. Eleanor was stealing pieces of bacon and eating them, and Chidi was trying not to laugh. 

Vicky, as Denise, hurried over to the table. "Don't you two look like you're having fun?" she asked. The more they spent time together, the closer Eleanor came to realizing it was the Bad Place and they weren't supposed to be having fun. They were supposed to be torturing each other. Which they, right now, were not. She fixed a smile on her face. Did she have to do _everything_ around here? "Who wants seconds?"

-

"Why does Denise have to insert herself in the narrative?" Michael demanded. "Everyone else is content to stand back and watch--or fan the flames, but no one else is jumping in to talk about their limp, or how many whales they saved. I hope you're not angling for a promotion."

"A promotion?" said Vicky. "From _you_?"

Michael scowled and she realized it probably wasn't a good idea to remind him how little his recommendations might mean to Shawn soon, if he still had phalanges to write recommendations with.

-

"Because," said Vicky, "like the Good Place, it's sweet but also a little hammy."

"I'm sorry," said Chidi. "I'm sure that was a lot more clever in English, but it just doesn't translate well to French."

Vkthrllsnx, Scourge of the Ashenlands, Ironshod Crusher of Men, BFA summa cum laude from UXibalba, MFA _infernis_ , and Shrieker in More Languages than this Puny Mortal Had Stains on His Soul, snarled and cursed in one of the subvocal dialects of the sixth circle. Three blocks away, a flock of pigeons went up in green flames.

-

"Would you like to meet my cat?" If they were still doing the storyline where Chidi tried to kill him (but didn't even manage to hurt one of his perfect little whiskers or Michael would regret the day he ever hatched), the meeting would provide foreshadowing if they didn't get along with White-Pawed Harbinger of Doom, and angst if he did.

"Sure," Chidi said. "I like cats." She felt thrilled at the frisson of guilt and emotional complexity this would add to their storyline. "I always meant to adopt one, but I could never choose between all the cats available in the shelter." He straightened his glasses. "Even when I was told they were going to have to be put down otherwise."

The thing about Chidi--the thing that made Chidi her absolute favorite to torture--was that he was so good at torturing himself. He was easy. Eleanor had to feel like she was hurting someone who didn't deserve to be hurt, but Chidi chewed himself up over every little thing, even things he had no control over any more.

Vicky was a marvelous actress, so she did not ask him to go on, merely patted him on the arm and said, "It's the thought that counts." It wasn't. Their point system punished people who thought about doing the right thing and decided against it too.

"Well," he said, and launched into a disquisition on some tenet of moral philosophy that sounded vaguely familiar to her. She nodded and drew him up the stairs to her apartment Hawaii Five Dough.

It was tiny and painted a weird mint green and permanently smelled like Canadian bacon and cheap mozzarella. Real Eleanor Shellstrop had had a real house. Maybe Vicky should have looked a little more closely at that room and board portion of her employment contract. 

Michael was lucky that none of the humans were dog people, because the only dogs in the alleged Good Place were very small, very yappy, and extremely flatulent. The golden retriever storyline hadn't worked because the construct had shrunk, barked more frequently and at a higher pitch, and smelled increasingly liked sulfur.

Cats, on the other hand, constantly wandered into the Bad Place because Shawn had spent a few very foolish centuries trying to keep them out, and now they all absolutely had to get in, and then meow at the Infernal Gates to be let out again. Some hung around for a while between the two acts, and White-Pawed Harbinger of Doom was one of them.

He was sitting on the kitchen counter when they came in. He let Vicky stroke him behind the ears for a while, and then introduce Chidi to him. White-Pawed Harbinger of Doom stared Chidi in the eyes for a few seconds, and then slowly lowered his head and began to lick his butt. 

He was the best adorable little monster.

-

"Because," said Vicky, "Hawaiian--"

"Oh, man," said Jason. "Hawaiian is, like, my favorite pizza ever!" He leaned over and grabbed a slice and essentially inhaled it. His mouth was still full when he said, "Oh, wait, I'm not supposed to talk, am I? I'm sick being this Jianyu guy, I'm pretty sure he never had the Hawaiian with extra chili flakes at the Diabolical Deep Dish in Pensacola and pretending to be him sucks. It's almost like this isn't the Good Place after all."

Vicky seriously considered knocking his head off. And then Michael's. (But of course Michael's would grow back.) Things were so bad that even _Jason_ could see through it.

Chidi was just staring at Jason like he'd grown another head. "Wait, you talk?"

"What?" said Jason. "No. Lay off the bath salts, homey."

-

"Look," said Michael, "you're Denise, and you're not managing to torture Chidi at all, so why don't you try for a bigger part in one of the others' narratives? Convince Jason that Jianyu was a vegetarian! Insinuate that Tahani is getting fat! Pretend to be sleeping with Eleanor's soulmate--no, she'd just use that to guilt trip him into deviant sex again and I can't deal with his whining about it right now. But it doesn't have to be Chidi, Vicky!"

"I torture him," said Vicky stiffly. "I torture him every time I bring him pizza."

"You torture everyone every time you bring them pizza! That's the whole point of Hawaiian pizza! What I'm saying is that Denise doesn't seem to have any lasting impact on Chidi, so you should move on or learn to accept your role!"

Vicky felt a gnawing sensation mid-thorax, but she knew it wasn't the chitinous teeth of a minor demon or a blood-eyed waspbat, because her ocular acid ducts stung too. "Fine," she said. "Fine, I will."

She shouldn't be too hard on him, because he looked like he was clinging to what remained of his sanity with every claw and tentacle, but if there had been a lava pit nearby she would have pushed him into it.

-

"Because it's not always Hawaiian pizza," she said, taking the seat opposite him. "That's just this week. We switch to cashew cheese next week, and barbecue tofu the week after that, and then anchovy. It's just--" She bit her lip and looked down at her clasped hands. "Sometimes I felt so overwhelmed by all the choices I had that I wished someone would choose for me. And if there's only one thing on the menu--"

"Then there's only one choice," said Chidi, his eyes going wide. "So no one has to make a choice."

"Yeah," she said, and lowered her voice. "I didn't even choose. I wrote a bunch of types of pizza down on index cards and then drew them at random."

His eyes were very wide behind his glasses. "Oh, Denise," he said. "That's such a simple, beautiful solution to so many of the non-ethical dilemmas I had on Earth. I wish I had known you then."

"You know me now," she said, staring across the table at him. "And--Chidi, we just met, but it feels like I've known you forever."

He swallowed. "Denise, what I'm about to say may seem somewhat heretical, but do you think the soulmate algorithms might be, you know. Not entirely infallible?"

"Well," she said, "they matched me with a cat, so--"

"Exactly. Michael says both Pedro and I could match two different women, but I don't see how that's possible, given the vast differences in all of our experiences and personalities. And if I'm not misreading Jianyu's hand signals, he thinks his soulmate is Janet."

"Maybe that was merely an expression of his love for all creatures," said Vicky, all the while thinking, damn, damn, damn. It was all going north again and Michael would, any minute now, come through the door, wipe Chidi's memory and obliterate all her hard work. "But right now I feel as though they must be wrong, because this thing I feel for you--" She looked at him with naked despair and hope and gripped his hand across the table. "Michael said it was the Good Place, but he didn't say it was the perfect place. We're soulmates, Chidi. We have to be."

She saw the moment he let her choose for him. _Vicky,_ she thought, her hearts soaring in triumph, _this is your greatest performance yet,_ and she scrambled out of her seat to sit on his lap and suck on his face, like humans do. About five klerks in he struggled free and she remembered that humans would think they needed to breathe. (They did not. They were dead. But they kept on thinking things like eating and drinking and breathing and bathing were important. To get torture, to truly get torture, it was important to get inside the heads of your subjects. And not by opening their skulls and poking around inside either. She had tried to explain this to Glphthpppt, and to Chrk, and to Caiettlynne, but none of them were exactly university material.)

"Denise," he said, "I believe in systems, and--"

"Fork the system," she said, grabbing his elbows and immobilizing his arms. So that's what they were good for.

"Okay," he said, and they made out until Michael came by and pounded on the windows and Vicky ripped Chidi's shirt open and used her primary phalange to trace a message in his skin.

"Wha--" Chidi started to ask, staring down at the smoking letters on his chest.

"Go to sleep." Vicky put her hand on his forehead, and he sagged in the chair.

-

She rose to face Michael, unrepentant. 

Michael eyeballed her and then looked down at Chidi. " _Cherche Denise_ ," he read, and sighed. "Well, that's one way to get out of being the pizza lady. What do you want, Vicky?"

"An accent," she said. "And a musical number. And _nobody_ hurts my cat." She didn't push her demands too far. If she told him what she wanted, what she really really wanted, he would refuse, and then he could claim to Shawn that she'd sabotaged the entire experiment, before she made an actual attempt to sabotage it. Vkthrllsnx would not be a scapegoat. Her horns were intended for greater things.

"What kind of accent?"

"Australian," she said promptly. "It's so lyrical and refined and just sexy enough. And I've always wanted to visit Australia." Chidi had told her about the spiders in Brisbane, and the snakes. The glories of the earth were wasted on humans.

"I-- Fine, we can do Australian a couple of storylines from now. And I think we've got a trombone, we can make you Eleanor's next door neighbor." Michael paused. "Or maybe a drum kit?" And without even asking her if that was okay, he snapped his fingers, and they were starting over.

Michael got her a _triangle_. And she didn't even get to play the stupid triangle. She didn't even get to do her Australian accent.

Really, she told herself, as she spoke to Dwayne and Qwerty and Phthrgllt and Mdizone and organized a coup, he only had himself to blame. 

She'd show him outside-the-spike-lined-crate thinking. But first, she'd show him the spike-lined crate.


End file.
